Norway trip

Flam trip, fjords, Rex in Bergen

In front of church building in Oslo

Vicky's birthday cake!

Changing of the guard in Oslo
King's palace

We have been busy with training this month. Our trip to Oslo in preparation for the BYU Young Ambassadors Tour was a successful trip. I celebrated my birthday on June 22 in Oslo attending sacrament meeting, then a very nice meal at the home of our National Directors of Public Affairs, followed by all 11 of the committee singing to me and then eating the chocolate cake that Gabi bought for my birthday. We were able to see the Vigeland Park in Oslo which contains some 200 sculptors of bronze, brass and iron. It is a huge park with over a million visitors each year. We saw the changing of the guard at the King's Palace, enjoyed a trip called "Norway in a Nutshell" where we saw some beautiful fjords and traveled to Bergen, one of the prettiest little cities in Norway.

Sweden celebrates "midsummer" on June 20 where they dance around a May pole, picnic, set off fireworks, etc. and it is a national holiday. We were in Norway so unable to attend, but we understand it is a huge celebration of the longest day of the year. Many people stay up to see the sun at midnight. We were in Norway, but we saw the sun at midnight. I love going to bed in the light and waking up to the light. It is only dark for 1-2 hours each night right now.

Prawns Galore cruise and Vaxholm

Vaxholm cannons and Rex and Vicky in Vaxholm on 44th wedding anniversary.

Zone Conference was wonderful. I get such a spiritual lift as we all meet together to train and be spiritually fed. Pres. and Sister Karlsson will be missed a great deal when they finish their mission.

Our travel and training in Goteborg, Sweden was excellent. Leif Mattsson is the new NDPA and we trained him on his duties as well as the hosting of BYU Young Ambassadors next year. This is a huge opportunity to "build bridges" for the church in the Nordic Countries. We received an email from Per Akebrand, Key City Director that he just received the letter from President Samuelson of BYU inviting Alf Svensson, Member of Swedish Parliament to speak at BYU next year. Per presented the invitaion to Mr. Svensson on Monday. We will be having a dinner with Mr. Svensson and his wife before they travel to BYU. This will be exciting and fun. We met Per Malm, the new member of Quorum of Seventy from Sweden at church Sunday. He and our International Director, Sister Gabriele Sirtl told us they know now this is why we were sent here on our mission. We were commended for our work. The Lord is certainly in charge and helping us.

For our 44th Wedding Anniversary, we went on a "Prawns Galore" cruise around the islands and stopped at Vaxholm. It is an old fortress built in the 15th century to protect Stockholm from invading countries. It is quite an interesting place. The weather was perfect and we had a great time eating prawns. The only thing that was tough for me was seeing the heads and eyes of the prawns on my plate. I had to pull the heads off and take off the scales to eat the bite of prawn. Somehow that made it less appetizing.

We continue to grow in our love of the Lord and the gospel of Jesus Christ each day. Our lives are richly blessed as we serve Him.

Trip to Copenhagen, Denmark

We traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark this past weekend for training. We were privileged to attend the Copenhagen Temple and enjoy doing a session. The taxi ride to our hotel cost us 226 DKK ($52) so we decided to walk the 3.6 kilometers to the temple. Walking is becoming more natural for us. We enjoyed a wonderful Danish meal with our National Director of Public Affairs and his wife and daughter. They are such wonderful people, doing a great job with public affairs. Saturday we visited Tivoli, a huge amusement park and garden area famous in Copenhagen. I got run over by a bike and received a gash in my hand with several bruised fingers and hand. I am fortunate that was the only injury as he was really traveling fast. We walked with our friends, Bro. and Sis. Clark to the Queen's Palace and to see The Little Mermaid, famous in Copenhagen as well. It was about 3 miles we walked. Sunday we attended church and enjoyed dinner with the Clarks before taking the train to the airport for our flight home. We enjoyed spending the weekend with our International Director, Gabriele Sirtl from Frankfurt also. She is a wonderful lady and friend.

Yesterday was our Zone Conference and the last ones for Pres. and Sis. Karlsson who are returning to Norway. Oue new mission president is from Oregon and will arrive on July 1. It is President and Sister Anderson. We have been able to complete a power point presentation to train the elders and sisters how to introduce themselves to the press and take an interview.

Our lives continue to be wonderful, exciting, and filled with much to do each day. Serving as a missionary is truly a fantastic blessing and privilege. We feel the spirit of the Lord watching over us and our family each day.

Stockholm Marathon

Vicky at the marathon. Rex by the warship Goteborg.

What a site to see the 18,000 runners in the Stockholm Marathon. It took almost an hour for them to run past where we stood. We were also able to see them a second time at about 20 miles. The winner was a Kenyan who completed the 26 miles in 2 hours, 16 minutes, 5 seconds. The best woman's time was a Swedish lady who completed it in 2 hours, 34 minutes, 12 seconds. I would have been glad to have even completed it by walking. The weather was beautiful, in true CA style.

We are finalizing our power point presentation for our trainings that begin on June 7 in Denmark. The Mission President, Pres. Karlsson has asked us to do a power point to teach the elders and sisters how to approach the media with a story about themselves and get some positive press. Public Affairs mission is different from most, but truly an exciting, wonderful mission with many different ways and opportunities to serve the Lord.

This Week's Events

Our lives have been busy with preparations for our training appointments in June. We also attended Neighbor Day with Per and Eva Akebrand, Key City Director and his wife. We are trying to use this concept to create a project using "Mormon Helping Hands". This is still in the planning stages.

Those of you who have seen "The Ultimate Gift" will appreciate the park bench pictures as we couldn't resist these. Here in Sweden, everyone sits on the park benches in the summer to soak up the sunshine. It is difficult to even find one available. Early one morning we found this bench for our pictures.

Skansen is a lovely, huge open air museum and park with 150 old buildings dating back to 1831. We had a few hours and went to see everything. It is on top of a hill that overlooks Sweden so requires a bit of climbing. There are a few pictures from the Skansen.

Condelezza Rice was here today for an Iraqi conference in downtown Stockholm, and there is supposed to be a demonstration tomorrow. The high school students have their graduation tomorrow and as tradition, they ride around in the back of trucks or on floats singing, playing loud music, drinking, and just celebrating in general. It should create quite a stir for the next few days with these events happening at the same time. Rex laughingly said he should go downtown with an "I love George Bush and USA" sign. I'm certain he would create quite a stir.

King's Palace - Changing of the Guard

We took the opportunity today to visit the King's Palace and see the changing of the guard. It is quite a ritual each day from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Unfortunately it started raining and turned off very cold. Included are a few pictures of the King's Palace and the changing of the guard. It is quite an event.

U.N. Family Day

One of the main purposes of our mission is to serve as missionaries to the Key City Council in Stockholm. Additionally, we are working with and training National Directors of Public Affairs in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. Our big event this year was the U.N. Family Day held on Saturday, May 17, 2008. Despite the cold weather and some rain, we had a wonderful turn out of people. The event was 4 hours long with booths, children's park, little three wheelers, pony rides, hot dog booths, 4 hours of continuous singing and dancing on stage and our booth decorated like a family room with handout about Family Home Evening. We took free family photos and had a bowl of candy. I can't believe the candy eaten. People would come by and take hands full of candy. We felt it was a success and enjoyed being a part of such a wonderful event. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints originally started this Family Day about 7 years ago, and now we are sponsors both financially and with physical labor to help the event come off. We are loving our calling as Public Affairs missionaries and feel deeply blessed serving here in Sweden.